


a lesson in fear

by lesbianryuko



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Bugs & Insects, Canon Compliant, Comedy, Fluff and Humor, Gen, Pre-Canon, could be cathmir pre-slash if you wanted it to be, fear of bugs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-03
Updated: 2021-01-03
Packaged: 2021-03-13 18:28:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,809
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28532919
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lesbianryuko/pseuds/lesbianryuko
Summary: On their first mission together, newly assigned partners Catherine and Shamir must work together to defeat a most formidable foe: a flying cockroach.
Relationships: Catherine & Shamir Nevrand
Comments: 4
Kudos: 10





	a lesson in fear

**Author's Note:**

> hello! i wrote this piece for the [lost & found zine](https://twitter.com/lostfoundzine), a zine about the fe3h characters' lost items! this was written as the backstory behind shamir's centipede picture, with accompanying artwork by Cebrys, which you can find [here!](https://twitter.com/Cebrys_/status/1345835015700152326)

Shamir has done a lot of traveling in her time, but Fódlan has to be the strangest place she’s ever visited.

Never has she encountered a continent with as powerful a religious institution as the Church of Seiros, nor has she ever witnessed such raw fanaticism. She can’t complain about her job with the Knights of Seiros; she gets to do what she always does, _and_ she doesn’t have to play nice with nobles like she used to. Besides, Rhea took her in when she most needed it, and that’s not a debt she intends to leave unpaid. It’s just that a lot of the people in Fódlan are weirdly obsessed with Rhea, which she wouldn’t really mind if they were just random civilians and not her newly assigned partner.

Her opinion on Catherine has already improved since they were introduced, though. They battled together for the first time a few days ago, and Shamir was pleasantly surprised to learn that unlike other knights she’s met, Catherine isn’t just talk. Even without the strange relic that glows and pulses in her hands, she’s powerful and remarkably skilled, able to fell several enemies in seconds while still coming out unscathed. Shamir can respect a woman like that...even if she is incredibly loud.

“You don’t talk a whole lot, huh?”

Catherine’s voice snaps her out of her thoughts. They’ve almost reached the small inn where they’re supposed to stay while they carry out their mission: to find and rout a group of thieves that have been looting the nearby town.

“You talk enough for the both of us,” she replies.

Catherine snorts. “I suppose that’s fair. Still, it’s good to get to know each other, right?”

Shamir shrugs. Catherine doesn’t give up easily; she’ll give her that.

Soon enough, the trees part, revealing a small town sitting in a valley. Right now, with the sun having just set, the twilight sky a neutral gray-blue, everything is quiet and undisturbed. The evidence of bandits is clearly there, though—shops with smashed-in windows, vendors with half-empty carts, crates and barrels knocked over.

As they approach the quaint little houses, Shamir notices the inn, one of the first buildings travelers come across, a two-story wooden shack with a stone pathway that leads to its entrance. A lantern hangs next to the front door, and candles glow in some of the windows. Compared to the rest of the village, it seems to have escaped the looting relatively unscathed.

They head inside together. Catherine does most of the talking to the innkeeper, which is fine with Shamir, and then they’re off to find their room on the second floor. Some of the floorboards creak as they make their way up the stairs. It’s certainly not the nicest inn, but it’ll do. Shamir has stayed in far worse conditions.

The room is small and a bit spare. It contains two single beds, a nightstand in between them, two windows with pale pink curtains, and a round side table with a chair pushed in. As Catherine and Shamir claim their respective beds and start to set their things down, Shamir happens to glance over at the wall, and that’s when she sees... _it._

Shamir has witnessed all manner of ugliness. She’s shot enemies in the throat, in the eye. She’s watched men bleed out or lose limbs. She’s fought monsters with ghastly teeth and rippling skin. Nothing fazes her anymore, except for—well—

“ _Roach!_ ”

As she says it, Shamir jumps back three feet, her hands held up in self-defense, and Catherine starts at the sound. The cockroach sits, stationary, about halfway up the wall across from the beds. Part of her wants to turn around and grab her bow, but she’s afraid if she takes her eyes off the hideous creature for even a moment, it’ll move.

“Oh, wow. He’s ugly,” Catherine says, putting her hands on her hips. Glancing over at Shamir, she raises an eyebrow. “Don’t tell me you’re scared of a little _bug_. I thought you were some sort of peerless mercenary.”

“Mercenaries don’t get hired to kill insects,” Shamir says, instinctively shuffling closer to Catherine, all while never losing sight of the roach. It twitches its antennae, as if to say, _Come at me._

Catherine laughs a little. “Well, I guess it’s up to me, then.” Without blinking an eye, she saunters up to the wall and slams her gloved hand right at the cockroach—except, before she can squash it, it flies right at Catherine.

“ _Waaugh!_ ” Catherine wails, stumbling backward and swatting furiously at her face. The roach flits around for a few seconds before eventually landing on the ceiling.

“Not so tough now, are ya?” Shamir says with a snort to hide her horror. She’s not sure how well it works.

“It can _fly_ ,” Catherine hisses, sounding absolutely scandalized. “That changes everything. Roaches aren’t supposed to fly.”

“That’s what _I’m_ saying,” Shamir agrees, crossing her arms over her chest. “I’d try to shoot it with my bow, but I doubt the innkeeper would look favorably on us for putting holes in his walls.”

Catherine pulls the chair out from the table and drags it into the middle of the room, right underneath the cockroach, then climbs on top of it. Again, she attempts to smash the roach with the palm of her hand; again, it doesn’t go as planned.

The roach flies away right as Catherine’s hand hits the ceiling. Catherine reaches out to smack it again and unconsciously takes a step forward, conveniently forgetting that she is standing on top of a chair. As one would expect, she trips and falls onto the floor on her stomach, shouting expletives and knocking the chair over in the process. The roach, meanwhile, has taken up residence on top of the table, as if to mock them.

Instinctively, Shamir backs away from it. Just the thought of touching it, even to kill it, makes her skin crawl.

Catherine pulls herself to her feet, pushing her messy hair out of her face. “Oh, it’s _on_.”

Without seeming to think, she lunges toward the table and slams both her hands down. Once again, the roach evades her attacks—and flies straight toward Shamir.

Shamir yelps like a startled cat and leaps into Catherine’s arms, almost automatically, as if it were completely natural for her to do so. Catherine, surprisingly, does not drop her or shove her away. Instead, she holds onto Shamir with one arm; with the other, she unsheathes Thunderbrand. “Desperate times,” she mutters. Shamir’s not sure what exactly she plans to do with it, but she’s willing to try anything at this point, even if they end up damaging something.

The cockroach has now landed on one of the chair’s legs and sits there idly. Catherine points Thunderbrand at it threateningly. “Your reign of terror is over, you little bastard.”

The roach does not seem fazed.

Shamir jumps out of Catherine’s arms, suddenly conscious of her partner’s warm body against hers, and reaches over to grab the bow she’d set down next to her bed. Standing far enough away that staring at the ugly thing doesn’t immediately make her cringe, she nocks an arrow and releases it, watching in satisfaction as it pierces the roach’s torso and pins it to the leg of the chair. Its legs flail helplessly, because of course it’s still not dead; that would be too easy.

“Nice!” Catherine says, still aiming Thunderbrand at the obnoxious little pest. She thrusts the tip of the glowing sword into the roach’s body, and it spasms with magic for a few seconds before falling motionless.

“Good work,” Shamir says, hoping her sigh of relief isn’t too obvious. “Now let’s dispose of the body.”

At that, Catherine laughs out loud. “You make it sound like we just killed a man,” she says as she sheathes Thunderbrand and pulls the arrow out of the wood. The cockroach is cleanly impaled on the tip like a meat skewer. Sure enough, there’s a small hole where the arrow landed, but the curtains are already completely moth-eaten; Shamir doubts the innkeeper would care about one blemish on the leg of a chair, if he even noticed.

Shamir sets the chair upright and pushes it back into the table. Meanwhile, Catherine ambles over to one of the windows and opens it up, then plucks the dead roach free and tosses it into the bushes below.

Shamir just stares. “You mean we could’ve opened the windows the whole time?”

Catherine closes the window and turns to look at her, perplexed. “Apparently. I hadn’t checked before now. Why?”

Shamir rubs her temples. “The thing could _fly_! We could’ve just opened the window and swatted it out. I’d assumed they were bolted in.”

Catherine’s mouth forms a small _O_ shape. “Oops. Sorry. My first instinct is usually to kill things.”

“So it seems,” Shamir replies, but despite herself, there’s a faint smile on her face.

—

“What’s that?”

Shamir makes no indication that she even heard Catherine enter the training grounds, focusing on the target directly in front of her in all its disgusting, many-legged glory. When she releases the arrow, it makes a satisfying _thwack_ sound as it punctures the centipede right in the head. Only then does she drop her position and turn toward her companion.

“It’s a drawing.”

It’s been about a week since they returned from their mission, and since then, Shamir has resolved to conquer her fear of bugs. The incident at the inn exposed a dire weakness, one that needs to be remedied if she is to truly become the peerless mercenary she needs to be.

Catherine wanders up to the paper tacked on the wall. A detailed, accurately-sized sketch of a centipede stares back at her. It already has a few holes in it from Shamir’s arrows.

“This is...really good,” Catherine says. “ _Too_ good, almost. That thing is freaky-looking.”

“That’s what I was going for,” Shamir says. “If I can’t look at real bugs, I’ll make myself shoot fake ones. Hopefully I’ll become so accustomed to them that they won’t bother me as much anymore.”

“Huh,” Catherine says, folding her arms over her chest. “That’s smart.” She scans the rest of the training grounds and seems to gradually notice the other drawings Shamir has hung up: a spider here, a cockroach there.

After a moment of silence, Catherine says, “So which is worse: cockroaches or centipedes?”

Shamir chuckles. “Centipedes are worse than regular roaches, but flying roaches are worse than centipedes,” she says without missing a beat.

Catherine laughs. “Well, the monastery could certainly use the pest control. Glad to see you’ve taken up the challenge.”

Shamir allows herself the tiniest of smiles as she lifts her bow back up and starts aiming again. Working with Catherine might not be so bad after all.


End file.
